Letters to the editor

Published: March 7, 2012 4:00AM

Voters are you awake now
Editor:
You are starting to see the results of your votes in November to repeal HB-5. We're seeing police officers, firefighters, city workers, teachers, and school employees being laid off or losing their jobs. More schools are starting the Pay to Play System like others have put into place in our area.
We can see it right here at home with the closing of schools, pay freezes, and possible layoffs. We are also seeing many money issues about to show up on our ballots to be voted on in the elections.
I for one voted my choice in November and will not vote to approve the money issues. I am on a fixed income and have nobody in school so I can't afford to keep supporting the spending of monies they don't have.
I would like to ask those union members and the voters of the area to look in the mirror mornings and look real good. You will see where the problem lies, its you, you want them to spend, but you don't want to pay for what you want. Let's get real and make the tough choices that have to be made.
Wayne McMullen
Wooster
Culture, not media, the culprit
Editor:
Sports editor, Aaron Dorksen seems to imply by his Feb. 28 editorial that hyperactive media coverage of school shootings and coverage of their perpetrators might actually lead to more violent, deviant behavior.
His solution? Limit media coverage of such events thereby denying those same perpetrators the notoriety that may endanger further "copy-cat" violence. Should we not then also "black out" (ie. make socially unacceptable) violent video games, "sporting" events that glorify violence and all movies whose only redeeming quality appears to be mayhem and bloodshed?
We may even consider limiting political speech which currently speaks of "blowing away" and "taking down" the opposition. Perhaps then we might begin a discussion about "blacking out" the ultimate deviant behavior war.
No ... Mr. Dorksen. America is unfortunately a culture that apparently worships violence. There will be more candlelight memorials, more grand speeches by politicians and more tears. We are reaping what we sow.
Hank Rossiter
Dalton
Undermining essence of government
Editor:
The current executive initiative to require certain provisions in group health insurance policies is only the tip of the iceberg when government meddles where it does belong. My personal opinion on this issue of reproductive rights is of no consequence; the focus should be on government mandates that enforce the notion the government cannot grant rights.
Our rights come from our creato,r according to the Constitution and elaborated upon by our Founders in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. The limits of my personal rights are reached when they abut the rights of another individual. When the government grants rights, there seems to be no clear demarcation and as a consequence, the rights of some people preempt the rights of others.
The preemption of rights is ludicrous as George Orwell told us in "Animal Farm," "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Equal means equal and the equality in question one of equality under the law. We are not guaranteed equal outcomes, only equal opportunity to try.
Our rights do not grant anyone the authority to lay claim on the property of another except in the special case that one individual is harmed by another, the person harmed can logically claim to be made whole, or have that wrong corrected.
Only the lawyers at the ACLU and White House believe that our rights grant us claim to the property of others in more situations.
In the current state of affairs propagated by President Obama and his administration, rights are whatever the president says they are. Government has the right to issue executive department rules that carry the force of law for whatever purpose suits the administration.
People have the right to receive "free" benefits from the government or from any entity the government forces to provide those benefits. These decrees defy basic market economics and create class distinctions of givers, receivers, and ruling elitists.
Wake up America. How many more bad decisions need to come from the Obama administration before the people as a whole see the undermining of the essence of our form of government -- the rule of law? If we do not operate under the rule of law, then, by default, we are operating under the rule of man.
History has proven when men rule, chaos ensues. America is nothing more than a police state under the rule of man.
Gary Harper
Orrville